Put the Worley Japanese page through Babelfish and it mentions special price of G2 as $299 US for 11 days from 9th Aug....

I wonder if that means today is release day?

3DDave

08-09-2005, 09:51 PM

Fprime 2 and G2 1.7 have just been released.

http://www.worley.com/

Jaspar

08-09-2005, 10:30 PM

YeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeHaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!

monovich

08-09-2005, 11:00 PM

coool.

I'm playing with hypervoxels now to see if they REALLLLLY render. First impression: they aren't exactly fast, still.

Badllarma

08-09-2005, 11:16 PM

coool.

I'm playing with hypervoxels now to see if they REALLLLLY render. First impression: they aren't exactly fast, still.

so what approx is the % diffrence between LW normal and FPrime on the same HV scene? I'm away from the office at present so would love to know :)

monovich

08-09-2005, 11:20 PM

I have no way of knowing. I'm rendering an arbitrary scene and just threw in some hypervoxels for the fun of it.

It does seem like it will be workable, though.

I'm judging speed on the basis of the render speed of the scene with and without hypervoxels. Without them it renders quite fast. With them it may be 1 1/10th as fast. The scene has lots of radiosity and reflections, though, so I'm sure that makes things tougher.

can't wait to have something to play with this on.

-s

monovich

08-09-2005, 11:37 PM

hmmm....

so far I've been able to get hypervoxels to cast radiosity rays, but they don't respond to radiosity. I haven't been able to get them to blend between groups yet either.

anyone else playing?

edit: I figured out blending...

KillMe

08-10-2005, 12:29 AM

want to be playing but still not working with win 64 =/

3DDave

08-10-2005, 03:47 AM

It looks to me for the same amount of time you get a better looking render (with AA) as compared to LW without AA.

mav3rick

08-10-2005, 09:07 AM

fp2 seems to render hv3 a bit slower

juanjgon

08-10-2005, 09:15 AM

fp2 seems to render hv3 a bit slower

I dont think that fp2 could render LW volumetrics faster than LW itself, because i think
that what fp2 do is to call raytracing and volumetric function inside LW ... perhaps it
could be usefull for previz, but final render could be slow ...

INFINITE

08-10-2005, 11:05 AM

Just tried HV's they are very slow which is a shame but heh more features to mess around with on G2.

Hopefully one day we will have some quicker feedback with HV's in the FPRIME window.

pooby

08-10-2005, 02:11 PM

G2 is so much easier to use with F-prime.

I wonder if anyone else has had a chance to use the SSS settings.
I have found that area lights work much better now, however, when you do an F9 render, it's totally different to how it appears in F-prime.. Fprime result is perfect.. F9 is useless.
I'd appreciate it if anyone could confirm this anomaly..

Another issue.. If you uncheck G2 from the shader panel, it doesn't halt the effect in F-prime.

And another.. when using SSS, If I turned the backlight to 0%, Light still shines through the ear of the character?? That's not right.

Zarathustra

08-10-2005, 03:05 PM

I haven't bothered to compare G2 results with either F9 or F10 versus FP. Honestly, I don't use LW's renderer unless absolutely necessary. I won't get a chance to test what you're claiming for a couple of days because I'm currently rendering.

I haven't noticed the backlight issue.

Unchecking G2 in the surface panel and it still being there in FP is an SDK limitation. Apparently there's no way to tell if something is on or off, so FP is forced to assume it's on.
The lame workaround is to copy the shader, delete it, then paste it back.

Panikos

08-10-2005, 03:07 PM

Pooby, disabling G2 means nothing cause LW doesnt give such info to FPrime for the time being. I am excited with FPrime-G2 connection, happy with SSS, I dont care about F9 unless necessary. I wish there was a Netrendering solution.

About the backlight, I havent understand what u mean

pooby

08-10-2005, 03:24 PM

Thanks for the info about the shader panel updating thing. that makes complete sense.

The F9 discrepancy is very irritating as we have a render farm.. Still, I have contacted Worley about all this..

In the example I'm trying out, which is a head. An area light in front and one strong light behind to test the old light shining through the ear thing.
When I lower the intensity of the light behind the head, the diffuse on the surface reacts as expected, but I still get the glowing through the ear. even on 0%
I'll try setting up a new scene

Overall, I'm delighted with the SSS, which, so far appears to work brilliantly with Fprime's internal raytracing of area lights. I just can't wait for Fprime's networking solution (If indeed there is one coming)

Badllarma

08-10-2005, 04:41 PM

So just to confim guys FPrime 2 only renders HV at the render not at preview?

Jaspar

08-10-2005, 04:56 PM

Yep. Still, great to have it available at all.

Can't decide myself whether to get G2, seems like a good offer, but I'm not sure it has enough features to make me want to fork out. Anyone out there find they can't do without G2, now they have it?

habañero

08-10-2005, 05:13 PM

I´d certainly recommend it, even more so at such a fabulous price.

If you are using lightwave for any moneymaking, 299 US pesos really is a steal.

Also, I have a hunch there might be additional benefit to harvest down the road with this offer, Just like we are getting something certainly worth paying for for free and throwing G2 at people as well, makes me wonder what he is up to. :)

Darth Mole

08-10-2005, 05:54 PM

I think the combination of FP2 and G2 seriously changes LW as a creative proposition. Setting up a scene and tweaking it is fantastically easy. As long as you're not using lots of third-party shaders/pixel filters – and you can always revert to F9/F10 for final output – then you just simply crank up every value on every surface and then do all your material and lighting changes in G2, with instant feedback. When you get your head round this way of working, this combination is quite a relevation! No more Surface Editor, F9, Surface Editor, F9... just dial in a value and see what it looks like. Also, with the ability to add area lights and soft reflections or even radiosity, and then just tweak the values IN REALTIME, well, it feels like cheating, but the end results are just mindblowing.

I'd say anyone who uses LW for anything above the most basic hobbyist level should buy FPrime and G2.

It's not a perfect example, but I improved the old LW toys scene with soft reflections and nicer shadows, and it was SO easy... just took a few minutes.

monovich

08-10-2005, 09:59 PM

does anyone know if the area light shadows and lighting from G2 are better than the ones normally rendered from FP/LW?

from the G2 features page:

-----------------

Area Lights LightWave has area light support built in.G2 completely supports these light types but uses its own algorithm to accurately compute area light shading without noise or speckles. G2's area shadows are comparable to LightWave's in most cases, but are dramatically superior in situations with very large lights. And G2's area lights do not buzz or flicker in animations.

----------------

we went ahead and ordered once seat of G2 to test out, but it won't be here for a few days.

monovich

08-10-2005, 10:15 PM

while I'm at it, does anyone know if the reflection options in G2 might be better than the native LW additive reflection? The additive reflection in LW never used to bother me until I read the Hypersmooth website and saw how much better reflections COULD be.

thx.

otacon

08-10-2005, 11:08 PM

I may have missed it, but since fprime 2 works with hv's does it work with the hd instance plugin??

Aegis Prime

08-11-2005, 12:09 AM

Nope - it just works with HyperVoxels right now - not Volumetrics...

Solace9

08-11-2005, 06:11 AM

First off, I think it's great to have hypervoxels render in FP now since previously I used the work around of rendering the HVs in VIPER, taking a screeen shot and compositing it with the FP render in PS. Besides, it's free. Can't argue with that, especially when I figured I'd be paying. So, thanks Worley!!!

G2's been a powerful tool that I've wanted for a long time. With the 200$ price reduction, it was an easy choice for me to buy it now, especially with the added benefit of FP integration. : )

I look forward to the integration of Sasquatch and, if there's a special price at that time too, then you can bet I'll be buying in on that excellent plug-in too. LW shader integration and 64bit versions will be happy days as well...

-Micah

Darth Mole

08-11-2005, 08:49 AM

The additive/smooth reflections work beatifully - I'd hope that little shot I posted would show that! It's not as powerful as HyperSmooth, but HS doesn't work in FPrime can be a bit slow when you need good quality.

INFINITE

08-11-2005, 04:44 PM

Holy C%"^!! Just got my new G2 license code through, installed LW 8.3 and the new FPRIME 2! threw in my old female model and a new transclcency map, area light behind the head and atlast Worley have got all the settings right in the G2 panel! no bad artifacts in the FPRIME render, the colours work and so does the *LW Boost button, Heres a test after 1 minute of installing and setting up.

Early days but I 'cannot' wait to play with this!

ps I know it has a bad nose glow : )

pooby

08-11-2005, 06:09 PM

Lee(on)

Could you please test for me whether the above issue that I noted happens on your machine too.

ie.. lowering light values to 0% still doesn't stop the glow-through.

and that the F9 render is totally wrong compared to F-prime's SSS

INFINITE

08-11-2005, 06:19 PM

Your right Pooby,

I turned down all the lights and the glow is there no matter how much you fiddle, it's like it's some kind of luminosity SSS trick? even if you turn the lights right up to ike 1000% it has no effect on the SSS or even if its 0%

INFINITE

08-11-2005, 06:28 PM

It seems to be a problem with the area lights, if you use spotlights the % works fine with the sss + yes the actual F9 render is different.

Panikos

08-12-2005, 04:37 AM

There is an explanation.

G2 treats Area lights different than LW.
FPrime treats Area lights under FPrime terms and bypasses G2 Area lights settings.
So, LW plain Area lights, G2 Area Lights and FPrime Area Lights are different.
Personally I am an FPrime Freak !:wavey:

Finally, I am so excited with FPrime+G2 SSS. It looks so incredible :bounce:
FPrime follows a different course of rendering so it doesnt depend on LW bottlenecks and weaknesses :thumbsup:

mav3rick

08-12-2005, 06:27 AM

well i have to say i am fprime freak too and i am freak longer than you:scream:

pooby

08-12-2005, 10:15 AM

If, like me you use area lights all the time, The SSS just works SO much better now. It's how I always wanted it to look and react.
It's a shame this bug spoils it a little.

Panikos

08-12-2005, 02:37 PM

Pooby, you can send a simplistic scene and object to WL that illustrates the problem.
Maybe by making a simple scene you can understand why the problem happens.

Good luck

pooby

08-12-2005, 04:24 PM

I've tried it on 3 different diagnostic test scenes. It's definately a bug. There is no way around it if you use area lights. I have not tried testing light falloff yet.
Luckily, as long as the light intensity doesnt change, and as long as you render with F prime, it's not an issue. but it's always nice to have it fully functional.
I have described the issue to Worley and I'm waiting for a reply.

INFINITE

08-12-2005, 04:35 PM

I agree with pooby it is definitely a bug, I have tried lots of light setups. FPRIME/G2 loves raytraced spotlights and they work accordinlgy ( sharp shadows though ) but it doesnt like the area light setup lke I said before the % of the area light has no direct affect on the SSS ( it just stays illuminated ) I would be interested too see if worley achnowledge this and how they tackle it,s other than that it works very well.

jorust

08-12-2005, 09:02 PM

I did a test with the demo scene Glassy Cow, and changing the point lights to area, shows big different between FPrime and F9.

Inserting a 'air poly' makes the FPrime looks better, but still not the same.
The FPrime shadow is green tinted, but the F9 is just gray...

It must be some sort of bug.

Panikos

08-12-2005, 09:14 PM

polymess, I dont have that scene handy.
Can u please place it somewhere with a link ?

Thanks

jorust

08-12-2005, 10:05 PM

Hi Panikos.

I downloaded it from http://www.worley.com/downloads.html

Panikos

08-12-2005, 10:15 PM

Oky, thanks. I will check it out and post my impressions

jorust

08-12-2005, 10:22 PM

Poli kallo!

Panikos

08-12-2005, 10:38 PM

Skol, my vicking friend :beer:

I see what you mean.
Its not a bug at all.
First of all, a rendering engine consists of a tremendous amount of mathematic formulas, and a combination of things that the sorting order can be slightly different generating completely different results.

Lately I attended a Pixar Seminar in France. They demoed Renderman plugin for Maya.
Guess what ? The two results were different for the same reason. Its practically impossible to duplicate a rendering engine 100%

So, out of my experience, I've seen far worst bugs in general. Such differences of such scale are almost of no importance.

As I wrote before, Area lights behave differently in LW/G2/FPrime
Comparing these 3 rendering engines to get identical result is waste of time.
Worley wrote in G2 manual than G2 Specularity is different than LWs.

Now, why the shadow appears Green ? Its because LW Area lights internally are consisting of Point Lights with jittered position.
In the past, LW Area/Linear lights didnt cross transparent objects. They treated them as solid. G2 came to solve this problem.
G2 does some tricks to reduce LW noise and to allow the light to cross the glass. The reduction of noise generates this sublte color change.

FPrime completely bypasses LW engine. It runs within LW but generates a result outside LW.

Hope this helps

Dillon W

08-12-2005, 11:15 PM

You don't think the fact that when you lower the light intensity, even to 0% and the SSS is still glowing at 100% is a bug?

I think you misunderstood. The other issue, the difference between Fprime and F9 as you say is understandable if unfortunate, but the intensity issue is very much a bug

Panikos

08-12-2005, 11:18 PM

I was writing about Glass Cow scene.
I didnt check the 0% intensity glow. I will check that out :thumbsup:

jorust

08-12-2005, 11:26 PM

:thumbsup: Thanks alot Panikos for your time.

funfun

08-12-2005, 11:40 PM

Did Mr Worley re-write G2 SSS ?
Is it totally different with F9's SSS?
Could anyone post the samples image of G2's SSS and F9's SSS?I really want to see the different as I can't see any big difference from G2+FPrime SSS Demo.

cheers

Panikos

08-13-2005, 12:03 AM

Yeap, Zero intensity Area Lights still affecting the SSS.

Hmmm, weird. Maybe boosting some values increasing a small value to a higher level, or a prevention of division by zero, Worley knows :)

INFINITE

08-13-2005, 12:25 AM

Hey guys check out some test's with G2, very slight SSS but you can just see the difference, I open a very friendly challenge for you guys to get the best out of some cool skin settings. What can be done?

It's really hard 2 get realistic skin but would be great too share ideas and G2 interface settings.

I N F I N I T E

funfun

08-13-2005, 12:31 AM

INFINITE, very good job :thumbsup: The first image is awesome.

I guess the second one is rendered with F9 where the third oneis rendered with FPrime.
It will be good if you can you post the first image without SSS? just want to see the different. Thanks

INFINITE

08-13-2005, 12:36 AM

Also a hand test and a heavier SSS test on the face. Any comments?

INFINITE

08-13-2005, 12:38 AM

INFINITE, very good job :thumbsup: The first image is awesome.

I guess the second one is rendered with F9 where the third oneis rendered with FPrime.
It will be good if you can you post the first image without SSS? just want to see the different. Thanks

Cheers FunFun, no they are both FPRIME2/G2 ( i will not touch F9 ever again!! ), but I have noticed a bug that if you uncheck G2 in the surface settings it still renders G2 in FPRIME, so to see the effects with and without you have to remove G2 comletely from the surface settings.

I will try a comparison render of the full body without all G2 settings.

funfun

08-13-2005, 12:55 AM

thanks , INFINITE.
btw, the video is too small. I can see the SSS, but not clear.

Oh, any difference of F9's SKIN tools and Fprime's Skin Tools?

INFINITE

08-13-2005, 12:58 AM

Thats as much as I can upload for the moment ( animation wise ) but I am very willing to share all/any LW scenes you guys might be interested in for testing and playing. Come on lets get the ball rolling! Worley has done it this time, things can only get better!

Panikos

08-13-2005, 01:19 AM

any difference of F9's SKIN tools and Fprime's Skin Tools?

funfun, how many times do we have to think of this.
there are no identical 3d rendering engines for reasons I wrote before.
If you have extra time to compare pixels, go ahead

funfun

08-13-2005, 01:42 AM

funfun, how many times do we have to think of this.
there are no identical 3d rendering engines for reasons I wrote before.
If you have extra time to compare pixels, go ahead

Of course, I know there is a difference, but how much of difference. Just like SSS, ppl said SSS works so much better than F9. I am not talking about SLIGHTLY difference so I don't think I have to compare pixel by pixel.:rolleyes:who knows what algorithm FPrime used for calculating SSS , so no LWSDK limitation problem anymore.

Considering that FPrime came as an interactive rendering/lighting system for LW creating "the same result", you have the option to use it to light your scene and you have two options to render it either with LW or with FPrime.

LW doesnt have SSS. If you have G2, you can have SSS in LW or SSS with FPrime+G2.
FPrime even though it goes hand by hand with LW in many aspects, because its a standalone renderer in some areas it is different/better. So when using FPrime+G2 you have some benefits and slightly different results.

See what it is in front of you, the +/-, benefits/limitations and decide which renderer you prefer

Polystress

08-13-2005, 02:42 AM

Awesome work Infinite, and great news from worley. Does the g2 sss influenced by fprime radiosity? Thanks.

turbodrive3d

08-13-2005, 11:26 AM

Hey guys check out some test's with G2, very slight SSS but you can just see the difference, I open a very friendly challenge for you guys to get the best out of some cool skin settings. What can be done?

It's really hard 2 get realistic skin but would be great too share ideas and G2 interface settings.

I N F I N I T E

Hi I N F I N I T E! Nice renders you have here.
I have question for you. Some time ago at Worley mailing list I saw people were complaining about bug in G2 - a lot of noice in g2 renders with area lights. As G2 bypass LW shading noice reduction option it cause a lot of noise especially in shadows that just unacceptable in close-up renders. Even raising up quality settings didn't help. People even said LW native renders look better than G2. Althought your renders rather small I see alot of noise at face and shadow under eyelashes looks not good. Can please put some light on this issue? Didn't Worley still fix that? Is it possible to remove this noise? Thanx beforehand.

INFINITE

08-13-2005, 12:07 PM

Hi I N F I N I T E! Nice renders you have here.
I have question for you. Some time ago at Worley mailing list I saw people were complaining about bug in G2 - a lot of noice in g2 renders with area lights. As G2 bypass LW shading noice reduction option it cause a lot of noise especially in shadows that just unacceptable in close-up renders. Even raising up quality settings didn't help. People even said LW native renders look better than G2. Althought your renders rather small I see alot of noise at face and shadow under eyelashes looks not good. Can please put some light on this issue? Didn't Worley still fix that? Is it possible to remove this noise? Thanx beforehand.

Hey turbodrive3d,

I think they have fixed the issue ( which I wasnt aware of before ) but my renders are the G2(settings)/FPRIME 2 render combo and the are noisy because they are very quick Fprime renders, about 5 minutes each ( for the faces ). The full body rendered to about Quality level 70 which was about 30 mins :) ( which is amazing especialy with SSS calculations, full raytrace reflection and 2 Monte Carlo bounces. If I hit F9 for that full body render, it would still be going now!:scream:

samartin

08-13-2005, 12:21 PM

Hey turbodrive3d,

I think they have fixed the issue ( which I wasnt aware of before ) but my renders are the G2(settings)/FPRIME 2 render combo and the are noisy because they are very quick Fprime renders, about 5 minutes each ( for the faces ). The full body rendered to about Quality level 70 which was about 30 mins :) ( which is amazing especialy with SSS calculations, full raytrace reflection and 2 Monte Carlo bounces. If I hit F9 for that full body render, it would still be going now!:scream:

Sorry this is so Off Topic but I have to say that Worley needs that image, it is mindblowing in laymans terms. This is better than your previous finished entry IMO :thumbsup:

[edit]

OT again, but she is slightly hovering after another look...

INFINITE

08-13-2005, 02:10 PM

Cheers Samartin:) I dont want to hijack this thread with my stuff just wanted to get peoples juices flowing and try and set off a spark to get others too push FPRIME2/G2/LW's limits!

come on people lets see some examples of the fun you have had with the new tools!!

I N F I N I T E

btw she is hovering indeed, she is meditating!! ...its unfinished :scream:

mav3rick

08-13-2005, 06:30 PM

i was boring today so i take a hour to create this image... hope u like it.. although nothin special just a throw of g2/fp2 combo!
ah yes forgot to tell. monte carlo is on together with soft reflections just to make my cpu bussy while i went away to look at news on tv. totaly 10 minute render 3.5 ghz athlon 64

http://www.null.hr/tmp/fp2apple.jpg

Polystress

08-13-2005, 09:50 PM

Nice candle! Finally realiable sss for lw. :)

Polystress

08-15-2005, 02:43 AM

I would like to know if g2 sss is influenced by radiosity thanks.

mav3rick

08-15-2005, 11:03 AM

well it response on radiosity but dont take NON LIGHT objects as source for SSS calculate... and personally i dont think u neeed it at all cause u hardly get situation where u cant mimic all with lights.
so to be clear. IT does affect radiosity in a way that it affect sorround objects but it doesnt use GEOMETRY in count for calculate SSS effect

Polystress

08-15-2005, 05:50 PM

So let's say, if you pick a hdri image, you can light the model and see it's sss, based in the hdri info?

mav3rick

08-15-2005, 06:00 PM

well since HDRI is ritch of luminosity info u wouldnt get anythin BETTER on SSS.... you will get corectly lit object with using HDRI for radiosity scene but all u need to do is to place one light at the SOURCE of your HDRI image just to get SSS react and than u will have all hdri for overal scene render and light for SSS. And than again u re gonna get great results. Dont be afraid of using light for SSS it is your friend.:)

Panikos

08-15-2005, 06:14 PM

The contribution of radiosity to SSS is subtle in the majority of cases.
This calculation is rather slow.

The contribution of lightsources to SSS is easy cause even before rendering,
LW knows the coordinates, types of lightsources and their intensity. (without shadow)
Calculating SSS from the environment means tracing the surrounding.

(The procedure is similar to caustics)

I've seen Renderman for Maya plugin, featuring SSS.
Even that, is a postprocessing effect, the cheap way, without considering the GI.

monovich

08-15-2005, 06:26 PM

while I'm at it, does anyone know if the reflection options in G2 might be better than the native LW additive reflection? The additive reflection in LW never used to bother me until I read the Hypersmooth website and saw how much better reflections COULD be.

thx.

I'll answer my own question because I just got the G2 manual. It does appear to have a nice cheat function called "Nonlinear Ray Reflections that helps correct the additive reflection "problems" that Lightwave has. I don't think it approaches this fix the same way that LW does, but it seems to do something similar. I'll post some tests when I can.

-s

Solace9

08-16-2005, 12:28 AM

The female example looks great. And posting our own examples will be cool, but people like my self who bought G2 on the 10th are still waiting for the license info to be processed so that we can use the tool. They must have sold alot of copies. I can't wait to get to play with this tool.

monovich

08-16-2005, 05:23 PM

here is an example of better reflections in G2. The light reflection is LW, the darker one is G2. you can dial in the look of the reflections quite a bit with the plugin. Now they won't get blown out like in LW.

Solace9

08-16-2005, 07:44 PM

Cool, looks like a mid-way option between LW and Hypersmooth.

Solace9

08-17-2005, 08:09 PM

Okay, so I set up a basic candle and get SSS working beautifully with a point light. Then I figure, why not turn off the point light and use FPrime's MC Radiosity to light the candle from the flame geometry when it's surface is booted to like a 500% luminosity? So, I tried it, but to no avail; the flame is bright, but nothing else is lit.

Anyone have any success with SSS via Luminous Objects and Radiosity?

-Micah

Solace9

08-17-2005, 08:44 PM

Well, here's a point light and radiosity, but the radiosity is not effecting SSS; only surface color. Note: the lights are orange and the wax is blue, giving green as the color.

Solace9

08-17-2005, 09:18 PM

Here's with HDRI, reflection blurring and speculare anisotropy.

Solace9

08-17-2005, 09:43 PM

Here's some of the reflection blurring, luminous shadow darkening, non linear rayreflections and 90 degree anisotropy, along with MC Radiosity, as a varriation of what monovich was showing before.

el_diablo

08-17-2005, 09:57 PM

Any chance of getting that in a non-noisy version with rendertime attached?

monovich

08-17-2005, 10:15 PM

so it can do SSS with HDRI, but not normal Radiosity?

thanks for the examples!

Solace9

08-17-2005, 11:23 PM

Monovich, no, I can't see that HDRI is effecting the SSS since it's essentially Radiosity too. Still, you can get a nice blend of the two effects. Bellow is a test of LW's rendering of different refflection blurings from hitting F9.

I'm just starting to learn these plug-ins, like today. So, I'm not sure I have the settings optimized for each effect, but I hope that helps a bit.

Solace9

08-17-2005, 11:25 PM

Oh and in my experience, blurs in FPrime, whether the preview or renderer and whether reflection bluring in G2 or using LW's DOF, the image always has a level of grain to the blur, unfortunately.

monovich

08-17-2005, 11:45 PM

In a case where AA refinement matters a lot (like with blurred reflections and DOF) try setting the lighting quality in the FPrime master panel to something lower than the default .5, like .15. that way it will throw more processing power into the AA passes. It can take a while to render the blurred reflection noise out of Fprime, but it can be done. We did a spot with massive ammounts of FPrime DOF and we managed to render out the noise until it was only about 10% noticable. It would have gotten better than that if we had let it cook more than a day (300 frames in 1080 HD).

also, you can get G2 to better match the Hypersmooth relfections by using the surface color tint.

thanks for the samples.

Solace9

08-18-2005, 05:55 PM

Here's an image from FPrime with little to no noise in the blurry reflection from G2.
I had to wait till the Preview renderer hit 5.5k in refinements, but I did use the technique of turning down the lighting quality from .5 to .001. The interesting thing is that you can set the light quality high at first and then turn it way down with out Fprime reseting the render. So, you could set the light quaility high for geometry and then set it low to refine any blurs. Pretty cool.

A. Worley Render time: 7.5min
B. LW Render time: 11min

Solace9

08-18-2005, 06:07 PM

Oh and the above LW render doesn't include Radiosity whereas the Worley one is using MC Radiosity.

INFINITE

08-20-2005, 11:40 PM

Does anyone know how you can control (G2's)SSS effects on a per light basis?. Everytime I add an extra light for say just specular or rim lighting on a surface, G2 calculates SSS effects for that light automaticaly. Is there away too exclude a lights SSS effect on a surface and have left just good old diffuse and spec?

Also this Area light SSS bug is soo annoying!! anyone found away too control the Area lights percentage? spotlights and point lights work fine but obviously produce harsh shadows.

Also a side note, I got a tip off from the kind folks at Worley, they are currently working on an FPRIME style surface baker!!

funfun

08-21-2005, 12:36 AM

Does anyone know how you can control (G2's)SSS effects on a per light basis?. Everytime I add an extra light for say just specular or rim lighting on a surface, G2 calculates SSS effects for that light automaticaly. Is there away too exclude a lights SSS effect on a surface and have left just good old diffuse and spec?

I also want to know, the way I am doing is rendering another diffuse-only layer.

Also a side note, I got a tip off from the kind folks at Worley, they are currently working on an FPRIME style surface baker!!
It sounds interesting, but sasquatch 2 or improving current SSS will be much more exciting.
Oh, btw,why not asking the folks at worley about those SSS problems?

INFINITE

08-21-2005, 12:49 AM

I also want to know, the way I am doing is rendering another diffuse-only layer.

It sounds interesting, but sasquatch 2 or improving current SSS will be much more exciting.
Oh, btw,why not asking the folks at worley about those SSS problems?

I think Sasquatch 2 is way off for the moment, will be amazing when its available, also real time feedback on HV's + all shader support.

I will try and drop Worley an email see what they have too say about the light exclusion thing, its seems silly we cant do it already.

Mattoo

08-21-2005, 05:15 PM

Yup, that new AreaLight bug is a pain in the arse. However it does pay attention to attenuation falloff on the light - which I have successfully used to control the amount of SSS from a light.
So it's not too bad, but it's not ideal.

INFINITE

08-21-2005, 05:57 PM

Yup, that new AreaLight bug is a pain in the arse. However it does pay attention to attenuation falloff on the light - which I have successfully used to control the amount of SSS from a light.
So it's not too bad, but it's not ideal.

Well I had a reply back from Worley and they said that they have fixed the Area light bug and it will be ready in the next update. When ever that maybe :)

Solace9

08-22-2005, 04:00 PM

Just another SSS test with Radiosity from 5 area lights and HDRI from the windows.
It took forever to get the radiosity noise out, but that might have been due to the .5 quality setting in the Fprime master plugin and the level 4 quality on the area lights.

mav3rick

08-22-2005, 04:14 PM

i dont get why u test SSS with this kind of scene specially if u use 5 lights for SSS?

I have been thrashing out stuff with G2/FPRIME2 and they are just simply amazing too work with. So much more control now on specular colour interaction and reflection control. It's a joy to use! and FPRIME is even faster than before :)

Solace9

08-22-2005, 07:48 PM

Maverick, I wanted to see how SSS looked under multi light conditions and with Radiosity bouncing in an enclosed environment. That's experimentation for you. : )

Infinite, thanks for the appreciation. I must concure; very cool software! I think the look of the object in this render would work well on an Igloo or glacier, but yeah, a bit odd, sitting where it is.

mav3rick

08-22-2005, 08:56 PM

hehehe well in that case i would dedicate special SSS light and execlude rest off.... can i specify what light should affect SSS in g2 panel?

why i tell u that cause if u put your candle in enviroment like that u wouldnt get sss effect looking convincing cause of too much light comming from all sides.. just my thought

Solace9

08-22-2005, 11:19 PM

Maverick: yeah, a single light will give the most dramatic SSS effect.

I can figure out how to make a light only effect SSS on a surface, but I can't figure out how to exclude all other lights from effecting only the SSS of that surface.

One of the unique things G2 does allow is for the incremental attenuation of light exclusions per surface* where as layout's approach is either total inclusion or inclusion of an object*.

-Micah

Polystress

08-27-2005, 09:49 PM

So this is what would be nice:

1. Fix the problems with area lights

2. Let radiosity play with sss expecially with hdri

3. An option to use other light types without those sharp shadows would be great.

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